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Fourth of July Twinkie Cake
If you are a follower of a Paleo or whole foods lifestyle, look away. I’ll be back with a fun drink ice or post momentarily, but for now, I’d like to talk about a dessert that includes ingredients that do not fall on your super healthy shopping list. This is a FUN dessert with some fruit thrown in so it isn’t totally crazy: Twinkie cake. Let’s be honest, there are two kinds of people: the “Twinkie – YUM!” and the “there is nothing natural about that snack cake” people. And yes, while the ingredient list reads (to those who bother) like a college chemistry experiment, Twinkies are yummy. (Obviously,…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: The Truth According to Us
It’s been a busy week and Wednesday just snuck up on me! How could it do that? I have a book to share with you this week that I just fell in love with! So let’s waste no more time, because I want to share my What I’m Reading Wednesday pick, Annie Barrows’ The Truth According to Us. Annie Barrows co-wrote The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and she is the author of the Ivy and Bean children’s book series. If you were a fan of the former, well, this book has a different feel. The Truth According To Us is historical fiction set in the summer of 1938. Layla…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: Cozy Mysteries & Meddling Detectives
I like mysteries, and I like spunky heroines – particularly the kind that never quite go looking for trouble, but always seem to fall face down into it as sure as the buttered side of your bread will hit the floor. Even more fun are those trouble magnets that just have to solve the mystery they’ve stumbled into despite the admonitions of the local police to just stay away. (Seriously…who can stay away?) Enter the “Cozy Mystery”. I confess, I’m relatively new to the term but not the genre. A “cozy mystery” falls under the heading of crime fiction; they take place in a small community, the detectives are almost always…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday – About Living Online
If you are reading this, it’s obvious you are plugged in and living online. Internet, email, social media – it’s become and integral part of our lives and unlike those of us born (more than) twenty years ago, today’s children have exposure to technology and various forms of social media starting at a very early age. This weeks picks focus on two ends of the spectrum, if you will. The first is written by a mom who, concerned by her family’s engagement in technology, makes the bold move to totally unplug. As in, from everything. The second book is one that, for those of us not willing to make that…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday – Order of Seven
While I look forward to the end of homework and packed lunches and crazy schedules, summer vacation also means the end of order as I know it. Soon, my quiet time to read and write will go hand in hand with the kidlings’ time spent with the Disney Channel or the X-Box. With that in mind, I’ve been doing even more reading than writing because I have so many great books stacked on the side table and lined up on my Kindle. One book read in record time is this week’s pick for What I’m Reading Wednesday: ORDER OF SEVEN by Beth Teliho. Reading the blurb on the back of the book, my…
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Chocolate Eclair Dessert
Some foods can bring to mind a moment or a memory with the very first bite. My mother had such a recipe. It was a chocolate eclair dessert, and it seemed to me that it was really only ever made for special occasions – mostly holiday potlucks or family picnics. (Ok – I may have asked for it for my birthday instead of cake.) It was rare to see it during the winter, come to think of it. If she got a wild hair, we might come home to find it in the fridge – a visit home would become a special occasion – but that was more the exception than the…
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What I’m Reading Wednesday: The Truth and Other Lies
In the mood for something different? Something witty, suspenseful, and with a protagonist who is absolutely despicable? Do I have the book for you! Sascha Arango’s “The Truth and Other Lies” is a cleverly written book that proved to be impossible to put down. Henry Hayden is a famous author who lives a rather unassuming life with his quiet wife – only, the only tales that Henry is actually responsible for are the lies and half-truths that come out of his mouth when he tries to save himself from a disaster of his own making. His wife mind-bogglingly churns out one book after another, and is perfectly content to let Henry lay claim to…
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A Fit Like A Glove
If you are lucky, you will in your life find yourself in a place that just fits, like a glove, a place that wraps around you like a comfortable sweater and settles your soul. I surprised myself by discovering that one such place was the little village in Wales where we moved for my husband’s job. Where Frances Mayes found many similarities of life in a Tuscan village to the one knew as a child in the South, I too saw similarities in the rural Welsh village. It was a place filled with quirky characters, where you could hardly walk through town without encountering a half-dozen acquaintances for a chat or a…
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Sea World, Texas Style
We traveled to San Antonio for our Spring Break vacation. One of the top things on our to-do list was Sea World San Antonio. The morning had started out overcast and chilly, but we didn’t let it deter us! With confidence in the weatherman’s forecast, we headed out to the park. We found the best deal online at the SeaWorld website; we printed our tickets at home (including pre-paying the parking – you save $2) and we headed straight for the security check at the entrance. It appeared not everyone was as brave as us, and crowds were light and manageable. The best part about the cooler weather: there was no wait on…
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Monkey Kingdom
Monkey Kingdom opens today, April 16, in theaters everywhere. And while that is exciting enough news for my nature loving daughter who has been waiting impatiently to see this film, I was pleased to learn that for everyone that goes to see Monkey Kingdom during opening week (April 16-23), DisneyNature will make a donation to Conservation International to protect monkeys and other endangered species, to save and restore natural habitats and to support community education and forest-friendly jobs in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Through donations tied to opening-week attendance for all five of their prior films, DisneyNature has provided for the planting of three million trees in Brazil, created 40,000 acres of marine protected…
